


Rimor

by justanotherStonyfan



Series: Honey Honey [34]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, Domestic, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Sounding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28304367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: This is the sounding episode. Skip chapter 2 to read plot-relevant stuff only.“It’s so weird to look over and see ‘em,” James says, and then he looks at Steve. “Which one’s your favorite?”Steve snorts into his dinner - it’s Teriyaki salmon because, firstly, it’s a Friday and, secondly, that was a good idea at The Kitchen.“I like a number two silicone, and I got a number two ribbed, too.”James feels his eyebrows raise.“Oh yeah?” he asks, and Steve gives him a look over his next forkful.“Yeah,” he says, slow, “we’ll get to it.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Honey Honey [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/943938
Comments: 149
Kudos: 303





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **If you don't like sounding, skip chapter 2!** I hardly ever break fics up into such a short chapter as chapter 3, but **chapter 3 is plot-relevant.**

Steve is, predictably, antsy as fuck about the tracker for a little while, which is sweet. James expects him to be - James works, and lives for at least half the time, in one of the most secure buildings in the world. It’s a double-edged sword, sure - if a place is so secure bad guys can’t get in, it’s like hanging a neon sign that says _’You can’t get me!’_ Causality is a fixture in all their lives. But it does mean that James can sleep soundly knowing that the First Avenger is, literally, at his back. What’s more, at any given time, there could be any one of a rage monster, a _literal witch_ , and the human embodiment of a supernova, and that’s just to name the first three supers who come into his head, not even considering the supergenius/pararescue/assassin/sniper/et cetera combos available to tower residents at all times. 

James knows he’s as safe with Steve as he is anywhere else. When Steve isn’t there, he’s safer in the tower than anywhere else. For now, there’s no reason to suspect that they’re in danger - A super-genius (Tony Stark) ran risk assessments, and one of the greatest military tacticians in history (Steve) looked over them. All in all, James is pretty happy they’re not at risk when they go to sleep with all the doors and windows locked, all the privacies engaged, all the links to Jarvis active, and all the security measures running.

Steve, a little harder to convince, has been making him comfort food for three days.

“Thank you,” James says around a mouthful of honey corn muffin (seriously, okay, it’s not James’ fault corn is _so good_ ), warm and relaxed because they’re a billion miles tfrom street levels and Steve has all the privacies engaged.

Steve, who’s been picking at his lasagna sort of dejectedly with his fork in one hand, has his other arm on the table, stretched out in James’ direction. James reaches out across the table with a couple of fingers and hooks them into Steve’s palm, and Steve looks up at him, surprised out of his reverie for a moment, before he smiles wanly. 

“Hey,” James says softly, and Steve huffs through his nose as his eyes flutter closed, the corner of his mouth pulling up just a little. 

“Hey,” he answers, low and rough, and James rubs the back of Steve’s hand with his thumb. 

“This is really good,” he says. “Bechamel’s always too much for me but yours is always really nice, whaddya do to it?”

Steve’s gaze turns a little distant, James can see him thinking through the recipe. 

“Just…” he shakes his head. “Not as much liquid. Less flour in the roux, it’s. I just.” He laughs softly and looks down at his lasagna for a moment, before he looks at James with so much love in his eyes that it kind of takes James’ breath away. “I just make it how you like it.”

James smiles. 

“How about how _you_ like it?” he asks, and Steve rolls one shoulder, his trademark half-shrug. “Also I love you a lot.”

“I like it like this,” Steve answers. “I love you a lot, too.”

“You miraculously like your lasagna the way I like my lasagna?” 

“There are two ways I can prove to you that this is true,” Steve answers, “the first being that I only had two ingredients growing up and they were both potatoes.” James smiles, he can feel himself do it. “So any lasagna is better than that. And the second is that I made you lasagna the way _I_ like lasagna, way before you told me _you_ liked lasagna that way too. This is my _default_ lasagna.”

“Lasagna’s starting to not sound like a word,” James tells him.

Steve’s eyebrows go up.

“Lasagna lasagna lasagna la sanula sanula sanlaya nasya yasasna-”

James laughs harder this time, “Stop, _stop,”_ and squeezes Steve’s fingers. It’s a reasonable distraction for now but James figures a distraction is as good as he’s going to get for a while. Steve’s going to have this on his mind for some time, that’s just who he is. 

There are a couple of things James thinks might help - one of those things is sex, because sex _will_ help Steve. If he’s learned anything from Krethan fic it’s that people like to think sex is a good distraction, but if he’s learned anything from dating Steve it’s that physical contact and reaffirmations of love and affection _actually are._ Just having his hand in Steve’s is helping, he can see from Steve’s posture, tell from Steve’s demeanor. 

He also has something else.

“I wanna go out after you’re off duty on Friday,” he says. “And then I wanna go back to the conversion and get freaky.”

Steve laughs.

“Get freaky?” he says. “You gonna put on your horns?”

James raises an eyebrow.

“You _want_ me to?” he says. “I could play incubus, come fuck your soul out, which sounded sexier in my head,” but Steve’s already laughing. 

He puts his fork down and covers his mouth with his hand as he does, head back, eyes squeezed shut.

“You coverin’ that up?” James says. “Pretty smile?”

“Aw, shaddup,” Steve says, but he puts his hand down as he finishes up with his mirth. “Ahhh.” Then he nods. “Fuck my soul out, there’s a new one. Sure, I think we can manage a little alone time.”

“Hey, we can have alone-time right now,” James says, and gives Steve a once-over that has turned Steve’s eyes a little darker by the time James is looking back at them. “Can’t get freaky ‘til Friday though, wouldn’t wanna get an Assemble when you’re all…” James smirks, gives it his best ‘you know what I mean.’ “Tied up?”

Steve wets his lips. 

“I am trying to eat, you hooligan,” he says. 

“I would like to eat you,” James answers. 

Steve snorts.

They’ll need to be fairly vanilla about it - being able to hop into the uniform at a moment’s notice is a requirement of Steve being on duty - but vanilla’s easy when he’s with Steve.

“I mean it,” James tells him. “There’s a bunch of stuff you’ve done for me that I wanna try, maybe I should just tie your wrists to your ankles and eat you out while you’re face-down on the bed.”

Steve goes pink over the bridge of his nose, he’s not looking at James but James can see it, and then shifts in his seat, and then takes his hand out of James’ hand and reaches down instead. James grins, and then grins wider when Steve gives him a, _come on now,_ expression.

“Then we get freaky on Friday back at the conversion.”

“Do I want to know?” Steve asks, and James just bobs his eyebrows. 

“Doesn’t matter if you wanna know or not,” he says. “It’s a secret.”

They both know what he really means by that, of course - that James will wait until Friday to spring it on him, and then they’ll discuss it properly, but the subject of that discussion will remain a surprise until _at least_ Steve’s got his shirt off on Friday evening. 

For now, James pulls up a certain website on his phone.

~

James is also, as they are both well-aware, a man of his word, and there’s something really nice about threatening with unreasonably sexy images and being able to follow through. Steve could crush him, but happily ( _very_ happily) takes a shower and gets cleaned up and grabs his ankles on the bed for James later. The reedy, unsteady noises he makes with James’ tongue in him are well-worth rushing through dinner, and having to do laundry afterward, and then they lose the rest of the evening to Steve deciding turnabout is fair play.

***

On Friday evening, Steve waits for James to come up from work - five o’clock means it’s time to go for both of them, and Steve’s thinking about the conversion. James, however, doesn’t even put his bag down.

“Ready?” he says, and Steve kisses him hello.

“Mh, yes,” he says as he pulls back. “Where we goin’?” 

“You will need three forms of identification,” James answers, “if you’re serious about that bank account.”

Steve stares at him.

“Yeah!” he says very loudly, then, horrified by his volume apparently, puts both hands over James’ ears for a second out of reflex, before he realizes the instinct to shield James’ delicate eardrums has come too late and grabs James’ shoulders instead, his face a picture. “Sorry!”

James laughs, can’t help it, shakes his head as he wraps his hands around Steve’s wrists.

“It’s okay,” he laughs. “Go get your ID, huh?”

“Yep!” Steve says, although at a reasonable volume this time, and he turns around to get what he needs. 

But for all that James billed it as a surprise, it ends up being hugely anticlimactic. He and Steve take a taxi to the bank, walk in and, fifteen minutes later, walk out. 

They go through _Steve’s_ bank, which…okay, James didn’t expect him to have one, he expected him to use some Weird Stark Fund Thing, but they do it because James Jiménez who works there is basically personally attached to Steve. Steve walks in having texted him on the way over, and Mr Jiménez is there to meet them. But there’s nothing life-changing about it. Mr Jiménez knows Steve well, has been background checked and screened like everyone else who comes into contact with Avengers, and he greets Steve with a smile and a handshake when he comes in, doesn’t get starstruck or ask questions. 

James’ new debit card will be in the mail, and that’s that. 

“That’s it?” James says softly, in the couple of seconds they’re left alone in the room together while Mr Jiménez, and Steve squeezes James’ knee.

“That’s it,” he says, barely-contained mirth in his eyes. 

~

They take a taxi back to the conversion, and Steve - who’s wrapped up in a lot of layers as per usual at the moment, he hates cold weather and will do anything to avoid it - shuffles in clapping his hands together, shoulders hunched and his scarf halfway up over his mouth. 

“You doof,” James tells him, reaches out and tugs the scarf down once they’re safely indoors where the ambient temperature is approximately that noise you make when you get into a bath at the end of a long day, and kisses him. “It’s Friday.”

“Is this a reference I’m not getting?” Steve answers, still actually genuinely a little shivery, and James kisses him again, hands cradling Steve’s head so Steve can press their foreheads together once James pulls back. “Freaky Friday? I’ve heard that but it’s a film title, right?”

“Yeah,” James says. “Its’ got nothing to do with us. You know your box of toys?”

Steve’s eyebrows go up, and he nods as he starts to peel himself out of his layers.

“Sure,” he says, and he goes for his scarf like it’s a tie - it’s wrapped almost as tightly. “I know it very well. You could almost say… _intimately._ ” 

He looks at James when he says it, one eyebrow raised.

“I’m not giving you points for that,” James says, and Steve cackles. “That was awful.”

“What are you thinkin’?” Steve says, and James doesn’t hesitate because he doesn’t need to.

“Sounds,” he says.

Steve blinks. 

He gets it straightaway, James sees that - they’re talking about sex and they’re talking about _kinky_ sex at that, so he’s not confused by what-kind-of-sounds.

“Uh,” he says, and James points at him. 

“That’s why I’m telling you now,” he says. 

Steve slowly colors up - it takes a few seconds. 

“I mean,” Steve says, and James cocks his head. 

“What?” he asks softly, and Steve looks….turned on but anxious. 

“It’s more of a masturbatory activity,” he says. 

“So is fingering yourself while you jerk off, and yet I seem to remember-”

Steve goes puce but he grins. 

“Yeah, alright,” he says, and waves James off. “Okay, alright. It’s just that it’s…I mean, there’s a lot of potential for fuck-up and as nice as it is - I mean, _I_ think it’s nice - you, there’s-” he takes a deep breath. “I’m gonna start again.”

James laughs and starts to get out of his own outdoor clothes. 

“Take your time,” he says, “isn’t that what you’re always tellin’ me?”

“Yeah, sure, stop it,” Steve says, but he’s still smiling, and he isn’t covering that smile with his hand either. “Okay so sounds are narrow and blunt but they’ll still hurt you if you fuck up, the potential’s there. So you gotta start slow and go easy.”

“We can do that,” James answers, hanging up his coat. 

“And you have to- You, there’s stuff…that _I_ would risk, but…”

James looks at him, head tilted. 

“What I’m saying is,” Steve says, “is there are specifics, and dos and don’ts, and you can hurt yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m saying it’s not something you do to someone else.”

“I want to watch you,” James says, and Steve’s eyebrows go up, his head goes back a little.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

“And I want you to teach me to do it.”

Steve wets his lips, looks James up and down quickly enough that James doesn’t think it was deliberate.

“We’d have to sterilize them,” he says. “I clean everything but…” He rocks his head to one side. “This is not going to be a sexy conversation.”

“Go on,” James says, chuckling, “I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”

Steve walks over to the kitchen section and fills the kettle with water. 

“Alright, so, your urethra leads directly into your bladder, as I’m sure you’re aware,” Steve says. “So if you’re gonna introduce something into your urethra, you gotta be pretty fuckin’ sure it’s clean, or you’re headin’ for a water problem.

James turns to watch him, leaning against the back of the couch in the reading section as he folds his arms over his chest.

“Ah-huh,” he says.

“And the base of your urethra goes _right through_ your prostate, of which I’m also sure you’re aware, so it can feel good, _but_ , penetration isn’t advised at the same time.”

James scrapes his teeth over his lower lip.

“Oh?” he says, biting back a smile. 

“Mh-hmm, if the sound’s all the way in it’s basically right up against your prostate and you can accidentally…you know, scratch yourself or, that’s why you don’t penetrate. Because wearing a plug can compress the urethra and then the sound can pierce through into your prostate if you’re not careful-”James blinks rapidly, managing to stop himself just before he says _ow!?_ “especially if you wriggle around a lot like I do, you know I do. So it’s- You don’t start out by doing it to others, it’s…I mean, some of this is personal preference. You know? Some people like steel sounds and they go all the way into their bladders but I don’t like that. I don’t- The risk outweighs the pleasure, you know? I like how it feels but I get too nervous and then I’m shaky and nervous and my dick is at risk, so.”

“Hey,” James says, soft, “hey, hey, no, if you’re not comfortable-”

“We can-”

“Steve,” James says, and Steve looks at him.

“Yeah?” he says.

“I want to watch you,” he says. “And I had a set delivered today, so you can te-”

“What?” Steve says. “Sorry.”

James smiles. 

“I had a set delivered today, so you can teach me.”

“What,” Steve says again, and then shakes his head, eyebrows up. “Wow okay. Uh, what kind?” 

“Steel?” James says, and Steve wrinkles his nose.

“Okay,” he says. “I…that’s. Okay, I have a set of those.”

James narrows his eyes a little, something’s off.

“What’s up?” he says, and Steve shakes his head a little. 

“I don’t like the steel ones, not really,” he says. “I have a couple that are metal but I’m happier with silicone.”

James blinks a few times. The thing is, the Internet is a really good tool, but it doesn’t tell him everything. It’s biased, and varied, and it doesn’t know him like Steve does. And what Steve said about people selling steel ones, that’s fairly accurate. James looked at a lot of websites, and some Reddit threads, and a lot of links were affiliates. 

“Oh,” James says. “But you like it, though?”

“I like it a certain way,” Steve answers. 

“Okay,” James nods. “And you’re okay to show me?”

Steve wiggles his hands.

“Sure,” he says. “But we gotta do some stuff first. Hygiene.”

James gets up from where he’s leaning against the back of the couch and walks over to Steve for a kiss. 

“I love you,” he says, “whether you talk sexy or not. So! Let’s get sterilized!”

Steve shuts his eyes with a pained expression of amusement as James laughs. 

“Ugh God.”

~

Sterilizing what Steve has, and sterilizing what James has bought, turns out to be relatively easy. Because Steve favors silicone but has metals, and because James bought metals, all it takes is boiling and air-drying. Which means that the sounds are glistening on a fresh towel on the countertop while Steve and James are eating their evening meal.

“It’s so weird to look over and see ‘em,” James says, and then he looks at Steve. “Which one’s your favorite?”

Steve snorts into his dinner - it’s Teriyaki salmon because, firstly, it’s a Friday and, secondly, that was a good idea at The Kitchen. 

“I like a number two silicone, and I got a number two ribbed, too.”

James feels his eyebrows raise.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, and Steve gives him a look over his next forkful.

“Yeah,” he says, slow, “we’ll get to it.”

James laughs quietly.

“I wanna do it now,” he says. 

“Yeah well, that’s all well and good for you but I gotta feed this metabolism, so I’m gonna finish and then we’ll go upstairs, huh?”

But he’s smiling, the kind of sparkle in his eyes that James has learned to anticipate, and he keeps eating while James tries to calm himself enough to finish his meal. It’s not easy - it never is when he has to sit still and ignore the anticipation of going to bed with Steve Rogers - but it’s early in the evening, and it’s a Friday, so they don’t have to rush anywhere at all.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the sounding chapter. If you don't like sounding, skip this chapter and head straight to chapter 3.

James isn’t exactly nervous, not really. It’s a different kind of feeling - anticipatory, probably. He’s seen porn of this, obviously, and he’s always wanted to try it, but he’s read enough horror stories to know to Get The Right Equipment, and getting it was never top priority. 

By the time they’re together and naked in the bedroom, he’s not exactly having second-thoughts, but he is a little thrown by the fact that this is something they’re actually going to do. 

Steve’s showered, so has he, and the next step is to like….really actually do this, wow. Okay. 

“Just settle down here with me,” Steve says softly, patting the bed next to him. “I know you wanna watch but I wanna watch too.”

James raises an eyebrow.

“Oh is that right?” he says. “You wanna watch?”

Steve settles back against the pillows and huffs a breath out through his nose. 

“Kid, I am old enough to know what I like, and you happen to be the sexiest person I know-” James feels himself blush but holds eye-contact “-so, all jokes aside? Yeah, I wanna see the look on your face when you do it and I get to have that face all to myself so I am _really_ looking forward to it. It doesn’t hurt, we’ll go slow, but…”

He shrugs a little, and James just stares at him.

He does this, often, and it still always makes James smile, always takes him by surprise. For someone who can’t always look at themselves in the mirror, Steve sure is comfortable in his own skin sometimes. 

“What?” Steve says softly, seeing something in his face for sure, and James scrapes his teeth over his lower lip. 

“You,” he says, giving Steve the once-over with his eyes as he smirks, because he knows Steve likes it and because James hopes that showing him how much he’s loved and wanted might go some way towards helping him feel better about his body and the person he is in comparison to the person he _was._ “You know, this whole sitting around naked and acting like it’s nothing thing.”

Steve blinks at him.

“Oh,” he says. “Well…”

James shakes his head.

“No, I get it,” he says. “Latrine houses, shared showers in camp, bathing in rivers….I understand. It’s…I don’t know.” He laughs. “You know?”

Steve, who’s watching him with just as much amusement as affection in his eyes, nods a little, then bobs his head to the side.

“I guess,” he says, but the smile on his lips is soft. “It was a different world.”

James takes a few steps closer, runs his fingertips over Steve’s instep and up to his ankle. 

“It’s funny,” he answers. “It’s like…we all care less about it now, so we’re all more worked up about hiding it.”

Steve laughs softly.

“Yeah, I used to say that to ‘Tasha,” he sighs, and closes his eyes for a moment before he opens them to look at the ceiling instead of James. “Back when bein’ queer’d get you beaten half to death in the streets and jailed, you could share a house with a guy for…” He squints. “Oh, a good eight years, off the top of my head, as an example-”

“Hypothetically,” James agrees.

“Exactly. And nobody’d say a thing - just fellas bein’ fellas. Six guys wrestling in a river in Europe? Eh,” he waves a hand. “Blowin’ off steam.” 

“You did that?”

“You’ve got no idea,” Steve answers with a grin that’s wide enough to show all his teeth. “Didn’t even mean nothin’ by it, just…havin’ a good time. You know? You spend six weeks duckin’ bullets and find you’re safe in a stream? Yeah, I’m gonna dunk you.” James huffs a laugh through his nose. “But now, now you can be out and proud and married with kids. But some people won’t even shake your hand in case they catch the gay. It’s wacky.”

James snorts.

“That sounds so weird when you say it,” he says, and Steve nods.

“What, gay?” he says. “Pardon my modern parlance, I meant ‘when one, hypothetically, liked fuckin’ dudes-’ ”

James laughs, startled into it, and Steve picks himself up again, sits up from the mound of pillows and reaches out with his hand. 

“Come here with me,” he says, and James does - he takes Steve’s hand, and he lets Steve pull him forward so they can both get on the bed together. 

“I used to think about it, you know,” James tells him softly, straddling Steve’s thighs to face him while Steve picks out a couple of things from the nightstand. “Before I met you. Back when it was a fantasy, when I was like….fifteen or whatever.”

“Oh really?” Steve says, and if he’s put off by the reminder of their age difference, he doesn’t show it.

“Yeah,” James says, rubbing over his thighs with his hands. “Middle of Europe in the middle of a forest, I find these clothes hangin’ off a tree by a river…”

Steve pulls his upper body back as he finds what he’s looking for, settling into the pillows again with a ribbed silicone sound and a bottle of lube, as well as a plastic syringe with a little plastic nib on it instead of a needle. 

“Oh, I get it,” he says softly. “You steal the clothes or get in with me?”

“Oh, I get in with you,” James says. “But you _think_ I’m after you or something, I don’t know. You turn around and grab me and then, y’know.”

“Wait, hold on, lemme take a stab at it,” Steve says, looking at him, “shot in the dark: I find you so attractive I forget that anything else in the world exists?”

James wets his lips as Steve sits up, towards him, brings his mouth close to James’ mouth.

“How’d you know,” James says softly, not really asking the question at all. 

“Lucky guess,” Steve answers, and kisses him. 

Steve doesn’t kiss the living daylights out of him but, James suspects, probably only because he needs his living daylights if he’s going to pay attention. 

“Right,” Steve says when he pulls away. 

They’ve both washed their hands, although it probably doesn’t matter to Steve’s body as much as it does to James’, and he unscrews the bottle of lube and then sets it on the portion of his thigh that James isn’t sitting on. James instinctively puts a hand around it to keep it steady.

“Thanks,” Steve says, and then he lowers the plastic syringe into the bottleneck and draws the plunger up to fill it with lube.

“Where’s that going?” James asks, and Steve huffs a laugh through his nose. 

“Exactly where you think,” he says, and James picks up the cap of the bottle to put it back once Steve takes the syringe back out again. “This is how I learned to- Thank you. This is how I learned to do it, mostly, and then Clint and Nat showed me a couple things, too. First,” and then he holds up the syringe as James sets the bottle of lube aside. “There’s no such thing as too much lube.”

James nods.

“Yep,” he says. “Rather be messy than at the ER at like three in the morning.”

Steve points the syringe at him a moment. 

“Exactly,” he says. “So lube in first, and then you lube up the sound.”

“Can I?” James asks, before he realizes he’s going to, and Steve looks at him for a moment.

“Sure,” he says, and turns the syringe over in his hand with one deft movement of his fingers. “Just make sure you stop when I say so.”

“Absolutely,” James says, and takes it from him.

“Mmh, okay,” Steve says softly, more to himself than James, and moves his shoulders against the pillows to get a little more comfortable. 

Then he picks up his dick - which is thick and growing full against the top of his thigh - and gives it a few firm strokes with his right hand, holding the skin taut by pressing his left palm down over his pubic bone. He comes to full hardness within those few strokes, and James realizes he’s watching intently and cuts his gaze up to Steve’s like a check-in.

Steve must register something about it - maybe James moves his head or something - because Steve’s also watching his hand on his dick, and Steve’s gaze cuts up to meet his own a moment later. Then he smiles, like this is a secret, and watches the head of his dick for a few more pills. 

“Okay,” he says softly, and James can hear him steadying his breathing as he nods a little, frowning down at where his foreskin is retracting. “Just put the little tip in there now.”

James nods, and then leans closer with the syringe full of lube, and he wraps his fingers around Steve’s dick to keep it steady while he works. Steve breathes very slowly and carefully, and they’re both totally silent when James touches the little nib of the syringe to the slit of Steve’s dick and then tips the syringe up slowly so that he can line it up and get it in properly. 

It can only be an eighth of an inch or so but Steve says,

“Mm,” so quietly James almost doesn’t hear it presumably as the sensation registers. “Okay. Now _slowly,_ depress the plunger.”

James bites back a smartass comment about surgical procedures, and does as he’s asked, very, _very_ gently using his thumb to push the-

“Ohn, fuck, I-” Steve says on a breath, and suddenly all his hair stands on end - James can see it shifting low on his belly, on his thighs, can feel the tickle of it against his ass and thighs as it shifts against his bare skin, can see the sudden roughness of Steve’s goosebumps across his body. “Yeah.”

James still goes slow, doesn’t know when to stop for himself and so knows to listen carefully for Steve.

“You’re comin’ up on it,” Steve says almost immediately - but that’s fine, it makes sense.

It’s not like he’s squirting lube up Steve’s ass - his urethra’s capacity is one hell of a lot smaller.

“There,” Steve says, and James stops pushing, draws the syringe away and watches the small bubbling up of lube as he does. 

Steve’s holding his dick lightly at the base, and James is still holding it steady as well, but Steve’s breathing is different now.

“You okay?” James asks, and Steve bites his lip for a second and just looks at the head of his dick.

“Yeah,” he says, but it’s strained, and then he laughs. “It’s cold.”

“Oh wow,” James says. “I’m really sorry-”

“No, it’s okay,” Steve says, “I like it, it only lasts a second or two but…”

He draws a deep breath that distracts James with how broad Steve’s chest is, how hard his nipples are. 

Without putting too much thought into it, James leans down and kisses over one just because, and then sits back up and shakes his head to get his hair out of his eyes.

“What next?” he says, and Steve points at the syringe with a hand he’s not using. 

“Get the rest of it in your hand, and then slick this thing up,” and he picks up the silicone sound from the nightstand. 

It’s a funny looking thing - it’s a thin silicone thing, wavy-ish, like it’s been pinched in a few places. It’s ribbed at the top inch or so, and the top itself is a giant ring of silicone. It’ll look like Steve’s dick is blowing a giant bubble or something, maybe trying to say something like a speech-bubble in a comic book, but it will mean that the sound is only going as far as the ring and no further, like a flared base stops a butt plug.

James takes it from him and slicks it up and notices, as he does, that it’s…not solid. It’s more like a weirdly-shaped straw.

“Why’s it a straw?” he asks, and Steve breathes out slowly through his nose as he curls the fingers of his free hand in the bedclothes.

“It’s hollow so I can come through it,” he says. “I don’t like to, and even if it weren't hollow, I’d probably be fine - coming should push it out. And even _if_ it didn’t push it out and I wasn’t fine - serum. But I don’t like to risk it. I mean, I like to think I can pay attention to what I’m doing until I start to do it then the old brain doesn’t really work, so…”

James smiles a little, looks at the black silicone wavy straw of a sound and at the wet head of Steve’s dick.

“Okay,” he says. “So what next?”

Steve lifts his hand from the bed and holds out his fingers in a pinching motion.

“Next is the bit _I_ do,” he says, and James hands the sound over.

Steve takes it from him, runs the end of it over the flared head of his dick for a second and then, just like James did, he touches the very tip to the slit of his dick and then tilts the whole thing upright.

For a second, James doesn’t know if it’s going to fit. It looks like it shouldn’t, even though it’s only a small amount too wide, but then Steve gives it a little twist and gets his finger through the ring, and James watches, mesmerized, first as the tip sinks in, and then as the rest slowly begins to follow.

“Don’t push,” Steve says on a breath. “Just…let gravity-”

And he does, James can see him doing it. All he’s really doing is supporting his dick and supporting the sound, and it sinks in quarter inch by quarter inch. Steve doesn’t say anything, just breathes loudly, and sits very, very still, and James watches the way his dick takes the silicone. It’s _fascinating,_ he can’t even look away to see what Steve’s face is doing - he watches the opening of Steve’s dick shrink and stretch around each wave, right until it gets to the ridges - then Steve says, 

_“Ohn,”_ very roughly and James does glance up then.

Steve’s head is back in the pillows, his mouth open, his body still covered in goosebumps, and James watches him, waiting for the right moment to speak or do something.

“I wanna touch you,” he says eventually, as the place where the ring pierces the sound comes to rest against the head of Steve’s dick, and Steve lifts his head and looks down at him with and expression that seems nothing so much as helpless. 

His brow is furrowed though his eyebrows turn up at the center, and his mouth is open even though he breathing steadily.

“Right,” he breathes, and James looks at his dick. 

It’s very flushed and pretty like this, and it’s weird to think that the whole length of the silicone thing he was just holding in his hand is now on the inside of it. Like a weird support beam for it. 

“What’s next?” James asks, and Steve shakes his head a little, squeezes his eyes shut.

“Now I jerk off,” he says, and James nods, covers Steve’s hand with his own where it’s holding his dick steady. 

He loves being this close - sometimes they’ll jerk off together like this, face to face on the bed - but he wonders if he can get that whole ring in his mouth.

“I could blow you,” James says, and Steve makes a soft, desperate little noise.

“Uh,” he says. “I don’t want you to choke.”

“I won’t choke, as long as you’re happy I’m not gonna force it too deep inside you.”

Steve blows out a long, slow breath. 

“Maybe next time, honey,” he says. “You gotta see what’s goin’ on this time.”

James pouts, but Steve makes a valid point so he doesn’t pout for long. It’s probably going to be more fun to watch anyway, this time at least. 

That thing Steve said about wanting to see the look on his face, and getting that look all to himself? Yeah, the feeling’s mutual, thanks, and Steve’s expression right now is somewhere between desperate and ecstatic.

James lets go of Steve’s dick so that Steve can have control - he’s pretty sure all it is is pulling the sound out and letting it sink back in, but he’s perfectly happy to watch Steve do it, just like he’s happy to watch Steve finger himself, just like he’s happy to watch Steve writhe around on his aneros, or fuck his fleshlight, or play with his nipples. 

He’ll watch Steve sleep, too, obviously, or cook or whatever - it’s not limited to sex - but that _'the-light-is-too-bright'_ expression, where his eyelashes flutter and his face screws up, coupled with the rapid breathing-

James is happy enough to watch, would be happy enough to watch forever. It just so happens that his dick is hard but he can ignore it, for now. 

~

Steve’s going to lose his mind - he forgets, really, just how weird this is, just how _intense_. He likes it, he _loves_ it, but he can’t describe it except to say that it’s indescribable. 

For Steve, most pleasure is A Lot and, while a little exposure sex therapy can help with that, give him a fortnight on mission and he gets a manual reset - he’ll come home and go off like a rocket in a minute and a half. But this?

This, he hasn’t done in…

Long enough that his brain doesn’t have the capacity to remember, anyway. It scrambles his brain the way a vibrator does if he hasn’t used one for a while, the way going two days without any human contact does. He can still manage if he has to, of course, but God, sometimes it’s so difficult. 

Like right now, when the itch of arousal is being scratched from the _inside_ , now that all the sensitive places on the outside are aching for attention but only the inside is getting any. It’s like trying to orgasm with his body on the other side of a pane of glass. 

Actually, it’s like trying to orgasm with his _brain_ on the other side of the glass - his body is very much present, it’s just that he can’t _reach_ the bits he can feel the most.

“Oh-h-h,” he says, and it shudders, his spine locked up because he’s pretty sure relaxing will let his muscles do what they’re trying to do and start the inexorable pulse of orgasm and leaving being unceremoniously dragged along behind it. 

“You good?” James says, and Steve doesn’t dare move the thing yet, he only nods curtly.

It’s hot, and he’s full, and there has to be a better way to put it than intense - it’s like a razor blade if the razor were made of pleasure, like ink blossoming outward in water if the ink were the fire in his blood. His nipples sting they peaked so fast, and he wants so badly to come already.

“I am so fuckin’ close,” he breathes, and James just sits on Steve’s thighs and watches, smiling, lower lip caught between his teeth. “You fuckin’ love this, huh?”

“Fuckin’ love you,” he answers, and Steve can’t roll his eyes because there’s a head movement that goes with it and he can’t make that movement because his body’s locked tight.

“What next?” James says again, and Steve can’t shake his head.

“Nuh-uh,” he says, the sounds running together, “no I,” he blows out two breaths in quick succession as pleasure crawls up his spine and gathers fast between his legs. 

“I know,” James answers, and lifts his hand.

Steve hasn’t got the breath to tell him no, tries to convey it with his eyes, but James doesn’t touch. Instead, he juts waves his fingers near to Steve’s skin, as though he were about to take him in hand. Steve tenses up instinctively and a wave of pleasure washes over him, spreads outward from his dick. 

“Ahhh?” he hears himself say - not that it’s words at all - and then his next breath hisses inward through his teeth.

“You fuck your dick with it?” he says, leaning down to get really close. “Hm? Slide it out and let it sink all the way back in again-”

“I’m gonna come so fast,” Steve warns, and he’s still trying to keep motionless, still trying to get his body used to how much it enjoys what he’s doing to it.

“Next time you should get in a different position,” James answers. “I could rub your hole for you while you fuck your dick.”

“Oh fuck,” Steve half-laughs, and tries not to picture it - on his back with his legs drawn up maybe, or on hands and knees while James’ clever fingers work at him from behind. “Fuck, don’t tempt me kid,” he says. 

“That’s half the fun, old man,” James answers with a grin and Steve drops his head back for a minute.

He does his best to think about how he feels, to be conscious of the different parts of his body, in some attempt to control the sensations flowing through it, but it isn’t easy. All he has to do is step back from the precipice but it feels like he’s going to lose that fight any moment.

“I mean it,”James says. “What’s next?”

“You’re right,” Steve answers him. “I fuck my dick with it. But I gotta-” he takes a breath as the knife-edge sensation of it flares again. “I gotta cool it first, I need to come down a little.”

“Could just come and then go again,” James tells him. “I don’t mind if you wanna take a reset.”

And Steve sighs shakily, running through the scenario in his head - it’s almost too much, is the thing. If he does it now, sure, he’ll absolutely come and he’ll absolutely be able to go again, but it’s like a knife edge, like an oncoming train. 

He hasn’t done this in so long and he knows it’s going to be stupidly intense, and he has to try and keep as still as possible while it happens. 

“You should cover your ears,” he says, his voice just as strained as he feels, his pulse hammering in his throat and his ears. 

“Go on,” James says, a slow smile on his gorgeous face, “go right ahead.”

And, for a second, Steve’s hand won’t do it. He plans to stroke his cock with one hand and hold the sound with the other so he can move it a little at a time, but his body won’t let him for a second or two, like his hands know how intense it’s going to be, like his body’s shying away from the spike of pleasure he knows is going to be almost indistinguishable from pain it’s so much.

“Want me to do it?” James says, and Steve laughs, shakes his head, and then frowns.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Kind of but also no.”

James snorts, rubs Steve’s thighs with his palms and leans down close enough that Steve can feel him breathing.

“Scared you’re gonna rip your dick off?” he says, and Steve just _looks_ at him, tries to convey his displeasure as much as he can, although it’s difficult to convey anything when there’s a mantra going on in his head that isn’t even words, it’s just noises over and over. 

He takes in a long breath through his nose and holds it for a few moments, tries to quell the racing of his heart. And then he moves, tightens the fingers of his left hand around his cock - it’s hot even to his own touch - and strokes once. 

He doesn’t even make a noise it’s so intense - it’s like needles down the length of his cock if needles made pleasure instead of pain, a prickling want that turns to a knifepoint in his gut - and he arches his spine involuntarily, his head dropping back and then rolling, toward his shoulder. The only reason he doesn’t fling James clear off himself is that he’s shoved his hips so far down into the bed it’s like his legs are a separate part of him now.

“Oh, guh-” he manages, because that’s all he can get out, and he has to stop his fingers clenching into fists because that would be _really bad_ for the whole activity.

“Go on,” James says softly, his hands still warm on Steve’s thighs, and Steve has to work up to it again, and has to wait the few seconds it takes to override the instinctive _this is too much_ and moves his hand again, and then he has to gasp so much air it makes the bed creak.

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” he says, and he hears James laugh.

As soon as he tries to move the sound, he knows he’s lost his chance to make a choice about it. In a split-second, he goes from close to _right now_ , and it’s so fast that he removes the sound instinctively, one smooth movement before his whole body locks up.

It’s _so embarrassing_ in that we’ll-laugh-together-about-this-as-soon-as-I-can-breathe kind of way, and it’s so much so fast that, for a good few seconds, he can’t make any noise at all. And then he’s slapping the lube-y sound down against the bed and his body’s crumpling up in a way he isn’t doing voluntarily, and there’s a moment’s lag before he registers the mortifying _noises_ he apparently made once he could get a breath in.

It wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t rough or low or whatever, he sounded like he was asking a fuckin’ question about it—

“Aough? _Aough?”_

—and cannot bring himself to care at _all_.

It’s a strain on his whole body, a wrench of every tendon, and he doesn’t have enough awareness of his hands to wonder if they’re doing what they’re meant to do. 

By the time he flops back into the pillows and manages to look at James, gasping, he finds that James looks about as startled as Steve felt, eyes wide, eyebrows up. He looks like he’s about to laugh hysterically or something and, chest heaving, limbs aching, blood still kind of stinging in a way he can’t quantify, Steve stares right back at him. 

You could count it on your fingers - _one, two, three_ \- and then James is spluttering a laugh at him, and Steve’s spluttering one back. 

They giggle together like that for a minute, with Steve’s stomach, already sore from the muscle contractions, aching even more. He laughs more the more he laughs, James’ body over his, James’ hands on his thighs, come cooling on his stomach, and he doesn’t care - neither of them do. There’s something so freeing about it, something so warm and right about it. It’s the dumbest thing, he thinks, to come so hard you sound like a confused Chihuahua, and realize that you can share how funny that is with someone else, realize you can share _anything_ with that someone else. 

“Ahhh,” he groans, his laughter petering out first while James’ is still winding down. “You asshole.”

“That was the _least sexy face,_ ” James says, and has to giggle some more. “I have _ever_ seen you make.”

And then, just for a moment, he crosses his eyes and curls his lip and pulls - if the lingering ache in various muscles of Steve’s face are any indication - a pretty fucking accurate rendition of the expression he made.

“Hey!” he says, but James can only manage a split-second before he’s off again, and so Steve looks around. 

The sound will need to be wiped off at the very least, probably washed before he can go again - although maybe he’ll just do the next size down, he’s not a size queen when it comes to his urethra - so he picks it up and puts it on the nightstand instead. Then he checks around to make sure nothing’s in the way, and then he flips them because he can. It’s not so much knocking James aside as it is throwing James while also catching him, and James’ laughter stops in a sudden gasp. Steve’s so fast about it that James is doesn’t manage to gasp before Steve’s got him safely on his back, and then he laughs again out of surprise. 

“Hey,” Steve says again, and James bites his lip to stifle the giggling, hums through his nose as Steve crowds him against the mattress.

“Hmm, hey,” he answers, and even if he hadn’t tilted his head up for a kiss right then, Steve was going to kiss him anyway.

It’s soft and sweet, considering, and when they part James looks as happy as Steve feels.

“I love you,” Steve says, keeping his voice low and gentle, and James snorts.

“Yeah, me too,” he says. “You roll me over to tell me that?” 

“I rolled you over to shut you up,” Steve answers, “and to get you sticky.”

James’ grin fades and his brow furrows.

“Ew,” he says, although they’re both aware it’s entirely for show. 

“Mm,” Steve agrees. “I’ll get the wipes, you grab your sound - don’t go for the smallest, get the next one up. Small can be too sharp for your first time.”

And he rolls off James to fish the wipes out of the nightstand. 

James has metal sounds, Steve reminds himself. He actually doesn’t know how well James will take to this at all - Steve didn’t not-like it the first time, but he wasn’t a hundred percent _yes_ until about the third time. The same, he supposes, is true for a couple of the things he’s tried, but still, it’s a hell of a weird sensation to get used to, metal or no. For Steve, the _good_ outweighs the _strange_ but he knows, as with all things, there’s nothing that’s universally enjoyed. 

Metal though…

“You’re sure you wanna try this?” he asks, rolling back with the wipes in hand. 

He gets the first one out of the packet and does his own stomach first because James is still busy with his sounds. 

James gets what he’s after off the nightstand, and then settles back into the pillows next to Steve, and Steve reaches over and cleans him up while he unscrews the lube bottle, before picking out a new wipe for his hands.

“I got another one’a those syringes, gimme a sec,” Steve says as James sets the pump cap aside, and he retrieves it from his side once he’s discarded the wipes. 

Then, once they’re both lying side by side on the bed, Steve holds out his hand.

“Gimme,” he says, and James frowns with his eyebrows but his mouth is smiling.

“Gimme?” he answers.

“I said it first,” Steve replies, and James wrinkles his nose as he laughs, handing the bottle to Steve.

Just like before, Steve fills the syringe from the bottle, drawing the plunger back slowly so that he can get enough, and then he hands the bottle back to James.

“Make sure you screw it on tight,” Steve says as James puts the pump cap back, “if you wave your arms around and knock it off it’ll be a bitch to clean up.”

“Lube on the floor,” James answers. “I’m picturing like a Benny Hill situation?”

Steve rolls his eyes.

“Try not to think of Benny Hill, darling,” he says, and James chuckles. 

“Okay,” Steve says. “Now I was gonna go again with you but…I don’t think I wanna do that, not the first time. If you like it, fine, that’s great. We can do whatever you want about me after, I don’t mind, but y’know. I’m gonna be supervisor.”

“Ooh, yes, sir!” James says seductively. “Gonna let me take my lunch break or do I gotta clean the break room first?”

Steve gives him, he thinks, a pretty good _you’re-a-dork_ expression, and James just grins and gives him a raised eyebrow. 

“Terrible,” Steve says. “Absolutely atrocious. When you’re ready?” 

And he holds out the syringe.

James looks like he’s not sure whether to take it, but Steve clocks it a moment later for confusion about how many things he has in his hands.

“Here, I’ll take that,” he says, and James hands over the sound. 

It’s a sleek, surgical steel rod that’s kinked at one end, and Steve knows it’s not the easiest to start with but it will, at least, be a very good indicator of whether James likes this or not. Cold, heavy, and inflexible, if James has any inclination towards not enjoying it, this thing will let him know.

“Okay,” Steve tells him, and he turns onto his side to better see James. “Now just like you did with me - put the tip inside, and then push down _slowly._ ”

James nods, eyes on the syringe, and goes to line it up, steadying his cock with his other hand.

“How will I know when to stop?” he says, and Steve shakes his head.

“I don’t really have the words to explain it to you,” he says. “But you’ll know.”

James glances at him, not quite nervous.

“It’s not bad,” Steve clarifies, and James goes back to concentrating on his dick and the syringe. “Just…not normal.”

“Go slow and stop when it feels weird,” James says, and Steve shakes his head again.

“The whole thing feels weird,” he says. “Stop when you need to stop.”

James nods.

“Okay,” he says, and then relaxes back into the pillows, blowing out a breath.

The little nib of the syringe appears to be safely inserted, and James seems happy about it.

“Okay,” he says again, and then he looks at Steve. “I’m kind of worked up,” he says. “I’ve never done this before.”

Steve leans forward just a little and kisses him briefly.

“Take your time, baby,” he says softly, and James nods.

“Okay,” he says a third time, and then he sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and stares at his dick intently as he starts to depress the plunger. 

It doesn’t take long before he sticks his thumb up in the air suddenly, the only sudden movement he can really make when he’s got one hand keeping himself steady and the other holding something inside it. Granted, that something is small, but James has never done this before.

“You okay?” Steve says softly, because James is frowning, and James wets his lips as he slowly lifts the syringe away.

“Yeah?” he says, though he doesn’t sound sure. “It’s just…weird.”

Steve nods.

“Ahuh,” he says, and holds out the sound to James. “I know, honey. Remember, you ain’t disappointin’ nobody if you tap out, ‘kay?”

“I will impersonate your accent,” James says as he takes the sound, and he hunches his shoulders in so he can lean over and kiss Steve briefly, before he settles back into the pillows and steadies his dick with one hand.. “Just because my dick feels weird doesn’t mean I won’t.”

Steve smiles then, shakes his head too.

“You just take your time,” Steve answers. “Get acclimated a little.”

James nods, and frowns down at his dick, squints at it a little. He seems restless, unsure, and Steve reaches out and brushes the backs of his fingers over James’ cheek. James is doing all the dick-watching, which means Steve’s free to focus on the rest of him - like that tension across his shoulders, and the furrow in his brow, and the downward turn of the corners of his mouth.

“You still wanna give this a go?” Steve asks, watching James carefully for his response, and James doesn’t quite chew his lip pensively, but there’s a twist to his mouth that suggests he’s not far off.

“I _do_ ,” James says eventually, drawing the vowel out and letting it hang in the air to leave the ‘but’ unspoken. 

“But?” Steve says anyway, because he’s pretty sure James isn’t going to elaborate.

“I…” James says. “…Don’t…think…I’m going to like it?”

And here he looks at Steve apologetically. 

“You’re in the driver’s seat, sweetheart, I’m just helping you navigate.”

The corner of James’ mouth pulls up, and he lifts his head to look at Steve proper.

“Okay,” he says, and blows out a breath - Steve’s not sure but James’ erection seems to be flagging a little.He lines the tip of it up with his cock and then hisses through his teeth and lifts it away sharply.

“Y’okay?” Steve says - he’s pretty sure steel’s conductive so maybe James got a static shock or-

“Yeah,” James says. “Just cold.”

-ahh, right. Of course. Not nearly so much of a problem with the silicone ones Steve likes. 

James tries again, lines it up, and carefully, very carefully…

~

“Don’t push,” Steve reminds him as the first few millimeters distend the soft little hole at the tip of James’ dick. “Just let gravity--”

Now the thing is, Steve has shown James - and done with and to James - a lot of stuff. They’ve tried roleplaying, Steve has spanked him, Steve has wrung him dry or put him away wet, and they’ve flipped and switched and played games and been lazy, all in just about every iteration that James can think of. And, though there’ve sometimes been hiccups, little bumps in their path, James has never run into anything in his sex life with Steve Rogers that he dislikes completely.

Until right now.

 _“Nope,”_ he says, once about a quarter inch is inside his dick, suppressing the urge to levitate off the bed in an attempt to get away, and he starts to retract it again.

“No problem, just go slow,” Steve answers, and James shakes his head. “Slow,” Steve insists, even though that’s not why James was shaking his head.

It feels weird, and not good-weird either - it’s the same _no, too much, too close, too potentially wrong_ as taffy that’s stuck to a filling - and, as soon as the sound is out, he holds it away from him. Steve takes it presumably because he thinks that’s what James is trying to do, but James fights a shiver, fights the urge to curl in on himself.

“Nope,” he says again - he can’t even really explain it. 

It wasn’t like….fun. It was pleasure, it wasn’t a nice experience. Not that it was a _bad_ one necessarily but just…It felt like it could turn into a bad one _really_ fast.

“You okay?” Steve says, his voice level and careful, and James nodded.

“Yeah,” he says. “Just. Too much and not. Good?”

Steve tilts his head a little on the pillow and rolls away enough to put the sound on the nightstand. It makes a little _clink_ noise when he does, and then he rolls back and slides his palm over James’ stomach.

James’ erection has flagged significantly, his cock only half-hard now, but Steve doesn’t pay any attention to it insofar as showing any reaction to James’ reluctance. He’s got his sights trained on James, but he doesn’t look disappointed. Then again, he wouldn’t - he’s not like that, but James still worries.

“Mhm,” he answers softly. “I get it. For me it’s like a razor’s edge but,” he shrugs one shoulder, “I like it.”

“Yeah,” James nods. “For me it’s like if you get sensitive teeth and you drink something cold.”

Steve hisses through his teeth in sympathy and nods and he winces.

“Yep,” he says, and then he leans forward and kisses James, small and chaste, which is hilarious considering that they’re both naked on the bed in the middle of the evening and doing what they’re doing, and then he pulls back a little to look at James. “You good?”

And James really wants to be good, he really does, except he filled his dick up with lube and literally nothing bar an orgasm or a trip to the bathroom is going to solve that problem for him quickly, and there’s no way the former’s getting a look-in when he’s this uncomfortable. 

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he says. “And then I’ll be good.”

Steve’s eyes narrow just a little but he nods all the same, and moves back to let James go. 

“Okay,” he says.

James gets up quickly and goes to the bathroom, and wishes he’d had more to drink earlier. There is _lube in his dick_ and it’s _weird._

How much he’s had to drink turns out not to be too much of an issue and he relieves himself quickly - ‘relieves’ definitely being the operative word. It’s only after that that he feels he can breathe properly again, and he goes to wash his hands with a lot less tension in his shoulders than he had when he walked in.

Except…

Now that the initial rush of do-not-want has passed, he spends a second or two feeling like an idiot - Steve’s done any number of things to accommodate his kinks, and the minute James tries something…

And then he looks at himself in the mirror - really looks. He narrows his eyes, and thinks about it hard. 

“No, you know what?” he says quietly. “No.”

He pushes away from the counter and goes to the door and goes back out into the bedroom and Steve, who’s still lying in bed, with the sheet tugged up over his hips for modesty and his hands clasped in his lap - which James notices because, often when Steve does that, he’s doing it to stop fidgeting - looks at him without saying anything.

“You know what?” James says, and Steve’s head lifts a little, letting James know he’s listening.

“What, sweetheart?” he says, and James crosses to him again because Steve looks like he’s worrying. 

“I was in the bathroom and I was thinking like…this sucks because it’s your thing and you’ve done all of my stuff but- No wait, hang on,” he says, because Steve’s pushed himself upright to protest, and he dutifully holds his tongue even though James can see him trying to object via telepathy. “I was standing there and I was like ‘This is stupid, I couldn’t do this for you’ and then I was like no, you know what? I don’t have to feel that way.”

“Right,” Steve says, and then kind of deflates about half a foot. “Okay. Oh.”

James laughs.

“I didn’t like it,” he says, still smiling.

Steve nods.

“Yep,” he says. “That’s fine.”

James nods, too.

“Yep,” he says.

Steve chuckles a little.

“I’m sorry it’s not what you were hoping for,” he says, and James shrugs.

“Hey, y’know. We try these things, that’s how we know. Right?”

Steve just looks at him, eyes sparkling.

“Sure you’re okay?” he says. 

“You mean am I okay enough for you to kiss me senseless while you pin me to the mattress and jerk me off?” he says. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Steve laughs, and sits up, drawing his legs up under him to can sit cross-legged under the sheet, elbows on his knees, his head down so that he can look at James from under his brows. 

“Oh well, thank goodness,” he says. “I was about to ask.”

It’s not as hard as it was, he thinks, to be sure of himself. To trust that Steve sees him as an equal, to feel that he and Steve share a space, instead of that Steve is sharing his space with James. 

James laughs, and takes Steve’s hand when he holds it out, lets Steve pull him down.

***


	3. Chapter 3

Later, when they’re back downstairs and Steve is making hot chocolate at the stove, a sea of assorted marshmallows strewn on the counter for them to choose from, James stands with his phone in hand, in the middle of the conversion (where the piano would go, his traitorous mind reminds him) and frowns at the app-driven lights where they flicker. 

It’s not the first time an app has updated and left him out in the cold, but his favorite setting is the glow setting, and it’s currently busy being a strobe setting.

“Ugh,” he mutters, and tries to switch to ‘Old Fashioned’ - a nice flashing-alternates setting that mimics vintage light sets - but to no avail. 

They freeze for a moment and then go black entirely, and then start to stutter.

“Come on,” James mutters, but they start flashing erratically a couple of seconds later. 

“What’s up?” Steve asks from the kitchen, and James exits out of the app but the lights keep misbehaving. 

“Aw, just. The lights, they might need a firmware update or something - the app only updated yesterday.”

Steve frowns down at the contents of the pan before he turns off the stovetop, and then he looks over at James.

~

Steve, but mainly the serum, notices a lot of things at once. 

James is very far away.

Steve’s windows are not covered. 

Steve is unarmed.

The lights are flashing morse code and he catches 

G--T-O--K-I-L-L--Y-O-U--U  before 

“Jarvis, Faraday!” he yells, and crosses to James as he does. 

Instantly the lights go out and James looks like someone’s shaken him very hard.

“What?” he says as Steve reaches him and grabs hold of him, and Steve just hauls him close.

“Extraction, _now_ ,” Steve answers. “It’s morse code, can you trace the signal?” 

_“Negative at this time, Commander-”_

“It’s morse code?” James says, and Steve looks down at him.

 _-the signal appears to have been rerouted via your wireless network and tracing is proving beyond me at this time”_ Jarvis answers. _“However, I will continue to try. Sir has been alerted and extraction will be en-route in approximately ten seconds.”_

“ETA?” Steve answers, and James grabs hold of his shirt.

“Approximately forty-five seconds, Commander - sensors do not indicate a present danger to you persons but it is advised you stay together.”

“What the fuck is happening?” James says in the darkness, and Steve shakes his head.

“I have no idea,” he says, and puts his hand on the back of James’ head to bring him forward against his chest - if there’s nothing else he can do, he can shield James with his body. “But I think someone’s trying to kill me and I have no idea how close they are to trying it. Safest place for you in this place is with me, and the safest place for both of us is Not Here.”

“What did the morse code say? Was it the lights?” 

He can hear the panic in James’ voice and it’s awful of him to have frightened him this way but it’s also the only course of action in an emergency so he’ll deal with it. 

“Yeah it was the lights, mostly I caught ‘kill you’ before I realized, so we’re outta here - we’ll stay at the tower, the security’s tight there, and then we’ll make arrangements for your loved ones.”

“My…” James says, and Steve tries to feel bad about worrying him further except it’s James and his family so his priority is Get Them All Safe _now._

 _“Knock knock,”_ Tony Stark says through whichever speaker Jarvis was using, and Steve hooks his arm around James’ waist as he leans back, so that he can kiss him. 

Tony would, Steve thinks, probably fly straight through the mirrored doors if they didn’t open automatically for the suit, but they do, and then Iron Man is landing in his living room and taking James.

“Extraction express, junior,” he says as he hauls James up against him. “Little forward for a first date.”

“I’m right behind you,” Steve says, and James’ mouth drops open as the suit seems to extend around him, enclosing him.

“All aboard,” Tony Stark says, and then he fires up his repulsors and leaves the way he came, fast.

Sam is in a moment later, much to Steve’s surprise, shield in his hands so that, when he lands, he can cover Steve’s back with it.

“You always gotta ruin my downtime?” Sam asks, but Steve steps onto his boots.

“Thanks, Sam,” he says, and holds on tight to the strapping around Sam’s body. “Am I glad to see you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam answers, but he looks just as anxious as Steve feels as he takes off. 

The night air is cold over Steve’s skin when they hit it, and Sam flies out toward the river, then upward, further still, until a square of brightness opens up in the sky - the quinjet, hidden by retroreflective plates.

Steve’s already stepping down from Sam as they land but James looks stricken.

“What the hell is happening?” he says, and Steve kisses him again as the ramp closes behind them.

“I have no idea,” he says, stroking a hand over his hair. “But we’re gonna find out. First we’re headed out to your parents’ place. Jarvis, patch me through to Mr and Mrs Barnes please.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to do this chapter for ages and it came out completely differently than I intended. The long break wasn't due to the pandemic, although that hasn't helped, but to a lot of personal problems that have arisen over the past six months or so. Hopefully this will tide you all over until I can next get back to it - thank you to those of you who've stuck with me, and Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it. To those who don't, I hope you're safe and well and enjoying your Friday.


End file.
